Podcast: Andy Julia – Road Music for Paris Nights

Paris is a fascinating city to drive at night, I’ll let you know what are my 10 favourite tracks to spend this hollow time…filling my spirit with a rare energy.

Diary of a Taxi Driver, Taxi Driver Soundtrack by Bernard Herrman, 1976
This song is a description of the disillusion of a worker, of life, going on along the dirty sidewalks of a city…the voice of R. De Niro speaks quietly but strongly right to the hollow of the ear.

We Will Fall, by The Stooges on the album The Stooges, 1969
A long and hypnotising song that tells the truth about a spleen feeling which is difficult to reach without any drug…If you’re lying on the back of my car while I’m driving after a party, you’ll see the first beams of light in a different way than the day before, and never the same after.

At Night by The Cure on the album Seventeen Seconds, 1980
After thirty minutes driving, I could clearly hear some lyrics, even if the voice is undermixed…
I saw The Cure playing in Paris and at this date, it appears to me that this band is really unique, and the sound perfectly corresponds at the idea of a shouting presence in an underground zone, forced to close its mouth for years, like a child lost in the sewers..

Christmas by Norma Loy on the album One Psychic Altercation, 1984
If you are alone on Christmas day, and if you had the chance to have good souvenirs from childhood’s christmas nights, this song will be very hard.

Agent Orange by Depeche Mode on the album Music for the Masses, 1987
This instrumental sad and low song is a perfect trip for loneliness and thoughts…the low tempo and the piano lead take your mind out of the city diseases…it’s a fresh shot of alcohol, you don’t feel the taste at the first moment, but the effect is a continuous turn over.

Life on the Line by Frank Tovey aka Fad Gadget, a single out in 1982
Maybe, cause it’s the year of my birth, I’m attached to this song…it’s a midtempo song, perfectly synthetic. Fad gadget is a genius, and I often find myself in the deepest of his sounds, his presence, his absurd revendications in answer to a no-sense world.

Domed by And Also The Trees on the album (Listen to) The Rag and Bone Man, 2007
This album is a masterpiece for those who appreciate music.
Domed is a track you can listen to all your life. At the moment when the human existence turns to an heavy cross. It does not depend on your age, not the place you come from, but only a lost moment reaching your mind while driving, or walking alone, along a never ending beach in a distant land.

Underpass by John Foxx on the album Metmatic, 1980
Made as a solo project by the first singer of Ultravox.
The soundtrack of a galactic metaphysic war, where humans are machines and love is the will.

Sweet Home Under White Clouds by Virgin Prunes on the album If I Die, I Die, 1982
This song is a mix between madness and wise and as William Blake told,
“The way of excess leads to the temple of wisdom”
Virgin Prunes voices let you penetrate a time when the crazy men where shouting down the street to announce the end of the world or the final salvation…in this track, I have the feeling that they wanted to transmit something near…

I Saw the Sun by Slowdive on the album I Saw the Sun (unreleased), around 1996
For me, the best recording of the band, but never released, hard to find…pure shoegazing filter for life…
If you’ve never been with your best friend on holidays, far from all shitty troubles of life, you’ll not understand this choice.

43° by Soror Dolorosa on the album Severance, 2009
PS: Concerning SD, my recommendation for driving is to listen strongly 43°, and you’ll be the first to go on, at the red light stops, kicking the mouth of all others around…Joke.